Andy Wittry | NCAA.com | October 1, 2018

The most successful mascots last college basketball season

This is the college basketball analysis you didn't know you needed until now.

We analyzed all 351 NCAA men's basketball teams that competed at the Division I level last season and categorized each team's nickname into one of the following 16 categories:

People (Mountaineers, Pioneers, Highlanders, Colonials, etc.)

Fighters (Spartans, Raiders, Pirates, Buccaneers, Vikings, etc.)

Cats (Wildcats, Tigers, Lions, etc.)

Dogs (Bulldogs, Huskies, Terriers, etc.)

Birds (Eagles, Cardinals, Hawks, Falcons, etc.)

Bears (Grizzlies, Bruins, etc.)

Horses (Broncos, Mustangs, Mavericks, etc.)

Wolves (Wolfpack, Lobos, Coyotes, etc.)

Buffaloes/Bison

Rams

Other Animals (Wolverines, Gators, Horned Frogs, etc.)

Insects (Hornets, Yellow Jackets, etc.)

Mythology (Demons, Titans, etc.)

Aggies

Weather (Cyclones, Waves, Flames, etc.)

Miscellaneous (Blue Hose, Rockets, Ragin' Cajuns, etc.)

A quick disclaimer: Some schools have a mascot that doesn't match up with their nickname, like Alabama with an elephant mascot or Stanford with a tree mascot, so we're strictly looking a school's nickname (the Crimson Tide or the Cardinal) for this story.

Our goal? To find out which of the groups listed above – both collectively and pound-for-pound – was the strongest last season.

Here's what we found: Cats, birds and fighters were collectively the three winningest mascots. It's not surprising that some of the more niche nickname types, like Aggies, Rams and Insects had fewer combined wins.

The chart below lists the number of teams in each type of nickname, total wins, losses, regular season conference championships, conference tournament championships, NCAA tournament bids and NCAA tournament wins.

Type

teams

Wins

losses

reg. season

conf. tourney

ncaaT bids

NCAAT Wins

Cats

57

986

885

9

8

13

17

Birds

56

869

959

3

3

5

4

Fighters

46

830

688

9

5

10

7

People

47

799

744

1

3

9

8

Dogs

28

453

461

3

2

3

4

Other Animals

23

421

354

2

3

7

7

Miscellaneous

17

298

254

2

0

2

4

Bears

13

228

202

1

1

2

0

weather

11

187

177

0

0

2

1

mythology

12

181

208

1

1

3

3

wolves

8

177

98

2

1

4

7

horses

10

172

149

2

1

1

0

buffalo/bison

6

115

86

1

3

3

1

aggies

5

109

62

2

1

2

2

rams

5

90

77

1

0

2

2

insects

5

44

115

0

0

0

0

Here were the most successful teams, grouped by nickname type, last season on a per-team basis, meaning we took the groups totals listed above and divided by the number of teams in each category.

type

wins

losses

ncaa tournament wins

wolves

22.13

12.25

0.88

Aggies

21.80

12.40

0.40

Buffaloes/Bison

19.17

14.33

0.17

Other Animals

18.30

15.39

0.30

Fighters

18.04

14.96

0.15

rams

18.00

15.40

0.40

bears

17.53

15.53

0.00

Miscellaneous

17.53

14.94

0.24

cats

17.30

15.53

0.30

Horses

17.20

14.90

0.00

People

17.00

15.83

0.17

Weather

17.00

16.09

0.09

dogs

16.18

16.46

0.14

birds

15.52

17.13

0.07

mythology

15.08

17.33

0.25

insects

8.80

23.00

0.00

While there isn't a single DI men's basketball team with the nickname of "Wolves," there are the Wolf Pack, Wolfpack, Ramblers and Seawolves, among others, and when you average the wins that group collectively won, the numbers are pretty impressive.

Loyola Chicago won 32 games, including four in the NCAA tournament during a Final Four run, and Nevada won 29 games and two in the tournament. We also included the South Dakota Coyotes, who were 26-game winners in the Summit League last season.

Andy Wittry has written for Stadium, SI.com, Sporting News, the Indianapolis Star, Louisville Courier-Journal and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He is a graduate of Indiana University. You can follow him on Twitter @AndyWittry.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NCAA or its member institutions.

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